More from Coelho

I just wrote about Paulo Coelho’s Adulteryhere. The second dog-eared page has this to say:

“Every thing we seek so enthusiastically before we reach adulthood — love, work, faith — turns into a burden too heavy to bear.

There is only one way to escape this: love. To love is to transform slavery into freedom.

But right now, I can’t love. I just feel hate.

And as absurd as this might sound, it gives meaning to my days.”

I speak regularly about the power of love here. I have that Martin Luther King, Jr., quote on the upper right of this blog. It is love that will save us from ourselves and from each other. And there are times when it seems so, so far away. It is not hate that I feel, unlike the narrator of Adultery, it is just frustration and aggravation and annoyance. And those feelings overwhelm my capacity to love at times. I have become a slave to my lesser feelings, no longer knowing how to experience the freedom love brings.